Governance mechanism and performance of marine eco-economic system: Evidence from China

Abstract

Governance behavior and the proper allocation of governance rights, responsibilities, and benefits are critical for the coordinated and sustainable evolution of the marine eco-economic system. This study comprehensively evaluates the process and result performance of China’s marine eco-economic system governance, based on panel data on 11 Chinese coastal provinces and cities from 2000 to 2016. Although the overall governance result has been improved by the marine economic and social subsystems, the marine ecological subsystem has declined and its development has stagnated the whole system. The process performance of the governance of China’s marine eco-economic system has declined significantly because of gradually increasing endogenous transaction costs, general transaction costs, and social investment. The government of China controls the governance of the marine eco-economic system in the country. Enterprises, NGOs, the public, and others have limited participation because of a lack of incentives. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a more transparent governance game mechanism and a more reasonable distribution system of rights, responsibilities and interests, so as to form a new multi-subjects collaborative governance mechanism.